It is a bird of the pine and fir forests in the mountains, ranging from 4,000 to 9,000 feet during the breeding season, but coming down to lower levels in winter. W. L. Dawson (1923) says: “This woodpecker is essentially a pine-loving species and is, therefore, nearly confined to the slopes of the Sierras and the Transition zones of the southern ranges. Only in winter does it appear at lower levels, and then rarely beyond the pale of the yellow pine. So close is this devotion of bird to tree that the woodpecker’s feathers are almost always smeared with pine pitch; and I have found eggs dotted with pitch and soiled to blackness by contact with the sitting bird.” Clarence F. Smith writes to me that he found this woodpecker very common around a camp where he was located from June 25 to July 10, 1935, in Tuolumne County, Calif., in the Transition Zone at an elevation of about 4,000 feet. The camp was at one time a lumbering mill, and there was much dead standing timber nearby. Most of the trees were _Pinus ponderosa_ and _Pinus lambertiana_. _Nesting._--The same observer says in his notes: “All the nests observed, except one in a _Quercus kelloggii_, were in dead standing stumps of the pines. The stumps were mostly some 12 to 15 feet in height, and the nests averaged about 8 feet above ground, with an approximate minimum of 6 feet. These nests may not represent a typical situation, as they were undoubtedly the ones that were most obvious to casual observation. Nests in higher locations would more easily escape notice. We had at least 8 nests within a half-mile radius of camp headquarters, and the birds were one of the commonest species in the vicinity. None of the nests opened contained any lining but chips of wood, and the cavities were about 14 inches in depth. None of the nest trees were less than 2 feet in diameter at the point where the nest was located. Many of the stumps had several holes in them, some of which had been nests in previous years, and some of which had been merely abortive attempts at drilling. The one nest in the oak, referred to above, was in a live tree with a decayed heart.” Major Bendire (1895) writes: